HENRY-Mosquito Coast and Witness

Mosquito Coast and Witness are two completely different movies with very different concepts. Yet, they both favor when it comes to the children having more wisdom or sense than their patriarch figures. In Witness, a child Samuel Lapp witness's something that very few, if any in his Amish community have seen. He becomes the witness of a murder and now he has lost some sense of his innocence. By viewing such a heinous act, he surpasses some of the wisdom of his grandfather. Samuel is learning how to be a respectable Amish man, but because his father is deceased, Grandfather Lapp is rearing him to be such. In the scene where Samuel is sitting on his grandfathers lap and telling him about he gun, Samuel surpasses his grandfathers wisdom with what he says. This scene's character and dominant proxemics s very interesting. The lighting is deem yet, it illuminates onto Samuel. The fact that the lighting emphasizes Samuels face, shows that he is maturing far past his grandfather's expectations. At this point Grandfather Lapp is explaining to Samuel that man has no right to kill each other. Under any circumstance for God makes life and death decisions. However, through Samuels experiences he feels otherwise. Little Samuel Lapp believes that a bad man should be killed, for the simple fact that they are bad. Of course. this way of thinking is not in accordance with the Amish values. At this point Samuels knowledge goes beyond his grandfather's. This is because Samuel experienced fist hand what bad men do, but his grandfather has not yet experienced something so life changing.

In Mosquito Coast Charlie is the eldest son of a very intelligent inventor. At some points the father is actually to smart for his own good. From the beginning, we see that Charlie looks up to and values his father, Allie, very much. However, throughout the movie we see Charlie surpass his father's sense and wisdom. In the scene where the the ice machine ( Fat Boy) blows up is where Charlie begins to think of his father in a different light. As in Witness, this scene's lighting is also very dark with a touch of light. The touch of light is on Charlie's face, even though the father is speaking. Allie looks extremely dark (in terms of evil) and insane in this lighting, but Charlie looks a bit scared and the light shows the slightest expressions on his face while he listens to his father. Charlie watches his father kill the men that tried to take over their village and at this point he realizes that his father is not completely sane. Charlie is now much more in touch with reality than his father is, just as Samuel is in comparison to his grandfather. Both Charlie and Samuel take reality for what it is, regardless of what their patriarch figures try to force them to believe.